


Can't Go Back To Yesterday

by alyyks



Category: American Gods (TV), Awaken the Stars Series - Jer Keene
Genre: Crossover, GFY, Gen, Maybe-Alternate Universe of Ashlesha, Minor Injuries, Post-Episode: s01e06 A Murder of Gods, Spoilers, canon-typical threats of violence, pre-Ashlesha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11262855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: The way to Wisconsin from Virginia goes through Pennsylvania and someone not quite old, and not quite new.(Shadow Moon meets parts of the Whetū family)





	Can't Go Back To Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately post-episode 6, "A Murder of Gods," and one April month sometimes between Khodī̂ being elected Sheriff and 2015 and the start of Ashlesha, book I of Awaken the Stars. 
> 
> Many thanks and good-natured cursing to flamethrower for the new playground.
> 
> This work is unbetaed (because it was written in eight days straight and didn't stop until I was done).
> 
> For the extra short American Gods summary (the TV version): Shadow Moon, straight out of prison and his wife's funeral, works for Mr. Wednesday (who is none other than an incarnation of Odin). Mr. Wednesday is going through the US meeting people (who are old gods and spirits and jinns and leprechauns brought over by the humans who believed in them) to gather against the new gods (the media (played by Gillian Anderson and just for her it's worth a lot), techno-boy, the creepyfying Mr World).

“Now,” Wednesday said as they left Virginia behind them, “this next one is probably going to go better.” This was said in the same tone he had warned Shadow to get under cover before it rained bullets in a white supremacist’s wet dream of a town.  
  
“Should I expect lynching, punching, bleeding hammer, killer tree, racist town followed by murder, or a whole new brand of insanity this time?” Shadow said. He hoped it had came out in an even, steady tone of voice, but he was thinking that he had left “steady” behind in Virginia and only bewildered and pissed off remained. He wanted to tear into Wednesday, but doing that while driving wasn’t the best idea. He could see the sword Vulcan had forged and then been killed with by Wednesday every time he glanced at the rear view mirror, sitting in the back seat like it was its rightful place and no cop would stop them for its faintest glimmer.  
  
Shadow Moon, at the wheel of the 1966 Cadillac he had been hired, among over things, to drive, had no wish to be stopped by a cop again. His side still sent acid flashes of hurt every time he moved too fast from the tree-like thing that had invaded the police station, killed everyone inside, and stabbed him on the way out from the last time he had been arrested. There was a really good chance that Floating Marilyn Monroe, the creepiest man he had ever seen, and the white kid who had tried to kill him before by lynching him were going to star in his nightmares the next time he closed his eyes.  
  
“O you of little faith. Django Whetū is practically family! Hospitality will be observed, in the proper ways.”  
  
“Practically?”  
  
“You know how that goes, alliances and marriages muddle the waters of who is who and which kid to sent a birthday card to on what date. Nice kids, by the way. His sister was one hell of a woman,” Wednesday declared, settling back on the bench seat. “A firecracker, in all the senses of the term, could see beyond this pale world.” He patted Shadow’s shoulder, a quick movement to drag his attention.  
  
The road was empty, had been for miles. Shadow glanced at Wednesday. The man was looking intently at Shadow.  
  
“That window I talked about, she embraced it, pretty much hanged off from it. Women, people like her don’t come around often.” His tone shifted abruptly, lightening up. “Take the next on the right then keep going north, but steer clear of Washington.” He sniffed. “That place belongs to itself and should have been left in the swamp it came from.”  
  
“I thought we were going to Wisconsin.”  
  
“We need to make a few more stops on the way. From there it’s all going in the same direction.”  
  
Avoiding the highways like they had been since Shadow had started to drive for Wednesday, the trip took most of a day. Even if they had departed Virginia in the early morning, Wednesday only started to direct Shadow to smaller and smaller roads as the afternoon stretched. The roads curved parallel to the Appalachia range, the mountains a darker stripe across the horizon.  
  
“Next one on the left and we’ll be there,” Wednesday said.  
  
There had been little to see—farms spread out, clumps of woods, fields turned green and thick already, hills and rivers, and eerily identical small towns seen from afar. Wednesday’s “next on one the left” looked just like more of the same.  
  
The view changed somewhat at the end of the driveway. There was a weathered two-story farmhouse that looked orange-gold in the fading light of the afternoon and was probably the silver color light wood turned to after years outside. The garden was large, obviously maintained though vegetation seemed to grow however it wanted, the few trees full of leaves and the hints of fruits to come. There was a garage on the side of the house, no car in evidence.  
  
Shadow didn’t park in front of the garage. He stopped when Wednesday said: “That’s far enough” in front of the house, where there was enough space for another car to park between the Cadillac and the building.  
  
Wednesday took something from the back seat, and made a little “ah” noise as Shadow started to move to get out. That “ah” noise was not a good sign.  
  
“It might be best if I go first.”  
  
“What happened to family and hospitality?”  
  
“It might come with a side dish of shotgun.”  
  
Shadow didn’t know why he even felt surprised by that, at this point.  
  
“The hell you want, Old Man?” True to Wednesday’s warning, the shout came from a brown-skinned man coming out of the house with a firearm in his hands. It wasn’t a shotgun. It looked a lot more precise and deadly than that.  
  
“Is that a way to greet me?” Wednesday opened his arms, right hand holding a bottle similar to the one he had offered Vulcan. “Do you still live by the whims of the weather, Django Whetū?”  
  
“It’s been a while since I listened to the wind. Had it told me you’d fucking come around, I’d have gone on vacation.” Whetū’s eyes narrowed, his lips a flat line. “Somewhere far away.”  
  
“I see. You still, ha, summon lightning?”  
  
“Haven’t since the 70’s. You want to help me get back in the habit, one-eyed bastard?”  
  
It sounded like _One-Eyed Bastard_ when he said it, a title and name and insult rolled all into it. Shadow got out of the car, keeping the bulk of it between him and the visible weapon. Whetū glanced his way, seemed to assess him in under a second, then focused back to Wednesday. The weapon in his hands was disturbingly steady. “I want nothing to do with your plans, Grimnir.”     
  
“You were made for war, my friend. Those of men never quite end, but ours is just starting to burst in the open. I am calling a gathering: you are invited.”  
  
“I left this steaming pile of shit behind in ’75.” Again the mention of the 70’s. The man did not look old enough to have been over ten years old in the seventies, much less have been able to leave, or quit, anything. Possibly the army, possibly the whatever else Wednesday was involved in.  
  
“You got busy in the early 90’s,” Wednesday cajoled.  
  
“Mincing words, you bastard. I retired in ’91, and that mess was self-defense. Keep going and I’ll introduce you to it.”  
  
Shadow had been hired to drive; he also had been hired to act as Wednesday’s bodyguard. The necessity to step between his boss and Django Whetū was starting to loom. When he moved to walk around the car, Whetū looked at him again, his face grim.  
  
Whatever else had been about to happen, the introduction of a sheriff’s car to the picture stopped it in its tracks. Shadow walked to Wednesday’s side, one eye on Whetū, one eye on the car crawling up the driveway. Whetū was looking past them, at the car. When it stopped, some yards behind the Cadillac, Whetū frowned and tucked his weapon somewhere at his back.  
  
“Everything going well here?” The sheriff asked right as he got out of the driver’s seat. He was looking straight at Wednesday and Shadow, not at Whetū.  
  
Save for the large scar on his face and fewer lines around his eyes, the sheriff looked just like the man standing by the house.  
  
Wednesday startled dramatically, turning into a parody of a grandfather if Shadow ever saw one—he wasn’t even trying to make that one believable. “Oh my, is that you Khodī̂?” He turned back to Whetū. “Where has time gone? He was just a little boy on his way to look just like his dad last I saw him!”  
  
Whetū sighed. “Everyone in. I’m not having any more of that discussion outside.”  
  
+  
  
The Sheriff brought the rear, closing the door and taking his hat off once everyone was inside the kitchen. Whetū leaned against a counter next to the coffee pot, arms crossed.  
  
“So we’re clear: Grimnir, you’re a fucking annoyance. I’ll listen to whatever you want to babble about this time, you’ll get a meal and a place to sleep, if only because my father would have been horrified if I didn’t open that house to you, then you get back into your car and you will. Be. Gone. No talking to my kids, not even thinking about finding them to talk to them. We clear?”  
  
“Very much so. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me, and the hospitality. How long has it been? I believe your father was there the last time—“  
Whetū’s glare was enough to stop Wednesday’s word in his throat. He gave a little cough, then held the bottle he had picked from the back seat in both hands. “Well. Might I trouble you for something to drink to start? We’ve been driving most of the day.”  
  
Shadow had the suspicion the charm and con-man skills would not work on Django Whetū in the slightest. The man did not take the bottle that was offered to him once more. Wednesday ended up putting it on the large table that dominated the kitchen.  
  
“Khodī̂,” Whetū said, “this is Grimnir. Even though my father chose when he came over and married my mother, and I chose, again, after him, he still comes around like a bad smell. He’s a con-man and a liar and would sell you your own kidneys once he tore them from your flesh.” He ignored the protest. “I don’t know who you are,” he said to Shadow.  
  
“Shadow Moon,” Shadow said with a nod. He had a feeling trying for a handshake would not work very well here. “I’m his driver,” he added, with a small incline of the head toward Wednesday.  
  
“Khỏi khôn đi Som,” the sheriff introduced himself next, mostly for Shadow’s benefit. He inclined his head at Shadow, did not offer his hand—did not offer to shake Wednesday’s hand either.  
  
“Now that this is taken care off,” Wednesday said, “Well, I still have this bottle for you—you still drink, yes?—and maybe a coffee?”  
  
Whetū sighed. “Coffee in the thermos. I’ll start on dinner. Khodī̂,” and there Whetū spoke a few sentences in a language Shadow did not recognize. Then he addressed Shadow, “There’s anything you don’t eat?”  
  
“No, sir. Can I help with anything?” Shadow fully expected to have the offer refused, like at the Zoryas’ and Czernobog’s place.  
  
Whetū gave him the same assessing and grim stare as earlier. Shadow knew the man was armed, suspected there were more weapons in the kitchen than just kitchen knives—it just seemed likely—, had seen him being frankly hostile to Wednesday, and still even with the man who looked too much like Whetū to not be his son wearing a sheriff’s uniform at his back, Shadow was infinitively more at ease than at Vulcan’s.  
  
“You can peel potatoes,” Whetū declared.  
  
Soon Shadow was sitting on one side of the massive table, peeling small potatoes to which dust still clung. Sheriff Som had stepped out, Wednesday was sitting on the same side as Whetū, Whetū was doing something arcane and delicious-looking to chicken over the range. It was maybe the quietest moment Shadow had experienced since…he counted back: one day at the airport, almost two days for the drive, the funeral, almost three years in prison… since too long.  
  
The animosity between Whetū and Wednesday, however, hadn’t abated one bit in the downright domestic tableau.  
  
“Have the new ones come to see you, by any chance?” Wednesday asked, a mug of coffee in hands. The previously mentioned coffee thermos looked big enough to contain enough coffee to create a small lake, and smelled strong enough to stick a spoon in.  
  
“Leading question, old man. Besides, their kind like wars, not soldiers.” The chicken made a mouth-watering sizzling noise. “Turn on a tv, open any newspaper, you’ll find soldiers’ names and as soon as they are back, it’s like they disappear. It’s not new. Nobody but us gives a fuck.” Whetū turned around. “So tell me, why come to me, someone that’s not old and not new, for your side? You never gave a shit either.”    
  
Sheriff Som walked back in the kitchen, and spoke in apparently the same language as the one Whetū had used before.  
  
Wednesday started to answer, but Whetū cut him off. “That can wait after dinner.” Shadow was starting to think that the man both didn’t want his son to know what was going on and wanted him to know _something_ was going on.  
  
+  
  
The meal had been less awkward than the one shared at Czernobog’s, but only because Wednesday had toned down his act with every minute that passed. By the end, Shadow guessed this was as un-con-man-like as the old man could act. After the round of congratulations for the meal, which had been really, really good, and the insistence they leave the dishes and cleaning to Shadow and Sheriff Som, Wednesday and Whetū took the bottle Wednesday had brought, the thermos of coffee, and left for one of the other rooms—“for a private talk.”  
  
Shadow wouldn’t have been surprised to hear raised voices shortly after. The soundproofing had to have been better than the apparent age of the house suggested.  
  
Sheriff Som took the plates Shadow brought him from the table, loaded the dishwasher. Once he was done, he gestured at Shadow’s middle.  
  
“You’ve been holding yourself stiffly and it’s only gotten worse. You got injuries aside from the face?”  
  
Shadow waited an instant before answering. “The side, and—“ Wednesday had done something, and while it had stopped the bleeding and agony that had crawled through his veins, it hadn’t mended the flesh. The gauze and tape Shadow had slapped on probably were not enough. “Are you a medic on top of the sheriff’s job?”  
  
The other man shook his head. “I might not have gone for the 18D classification like my brother, but I know my way around a first aid kit.”  
  
“Army?”  
  
“Special Forces,” Sheriff Som said. “Sit down and let me see.”  
  
Shadow sat, lifted his shirt up, winced. It wasn’t as bad as before, but the gauze he had slapped on sometimes that morning was stained with red. Sheriff Som peeled the mess off with gloved hands and more gentleness that Shadow had been expecting.  
  
“What made that?” Idle question, or was that line of questioning going to go into a rabbit’s hole? Shadow did not answer.  
  
Sheriff Som looked up as Shadow kept silent. “I have no interest in pursuing this—unless you’d like to—especially since I’m thinking it did not happen in this state. Besides, it’s 8 pm, I’m off-duty, call me Khodī̂.”  
  
“It was a tree. I think.”  
  
Khodī̂ stopped what he was doing—re-cleaning the wound with disinfectant solution given the stinging—to look up at him.  
  
“A tree stabbed you.”  
  
“Yes.” Shadow breathed. “Not the strangest thing that happened this week. Trust me, Khodī̂, I’m still not sure I believe any of it either.”  
  
+  
  
Back and forth, Shadow danced the silver dollar Zorya Polunochnaya had plucked from the sky in something that had definitively not been a dream across his knuckles. Much like with the metal disc he had used in prison, the movement worked as a way to quiet his mind and occupy his hands. He still wanted very much to yell at Wednesday for the murder he had made Shadow accessory and witness to, but doing that in someone’s house did not seem a good idea. Doing that in Whetū’s house felt like madness. So coin tricks it was.  
  
He still had no idea how Mad Sweeney had done his trick. Under the surface, he was starting to believe the man (the leprechaun?) when he said he was just doing it, plucking coins from thin air that came from nowhere but thin air. It honestly wouldn’t be the strangest thing happening that week. Coin tricks with real, weighty in your hand coins were something safe to focus on.  
  
Whetū and Wednesday were still talking, somewhere Shadow couldn’t hear them from where he was on the back porch. Khodī̂ had left half an hour or so ago with one last nod, climbing back in his sheriff’s car like there should have been a scene change after that, a fade to black, a cut going to commercial break. It hadn’t seemed quite real.  
  
Nothing much seemed real.  
  
Laura could have walked up to him, coming in from the night from what he was pretty sure was a shooting range in the back garden and into the hazy circle cast by the back porch light and it wouldn’t have been surprising.  
  
“Do you follow him willingly?”  
  
Shadow hadn’t heard Whetū walk out. The coin fell in between Shadow’s shoes. He picked it up before turning his head to look at Whetū.  
  
“We have a compact.”  
  
“Doesn’t mean much if you agreed to that under duress.”  
  
Shadow didn’t answer.  
  
“Did he trick you for that compact?” Whetū came around and sat next to Shadow.  
  
Shadow frowned at the silver dollar he was still holding, examining the shine it gave under the porch light. “I’m trying to figure out why you care about that.”  
  
“I raised eight kids,” and there was a depth to that statement Shadow didn’t understand, “I can tell when there’s shit going on.”  
  
Shadow would have been well unable to explain why he blurted out: “I accepted Wednesday’s job offer after learning my wife was dead.”  
  
Whetū’s hand on his shoulder startled Shadow. When he turned his head, there was shared pain on the man’s face. Whetū got up as silently as he had come, went in, and came back with two beers.  
  
They drank in silence.  
  
+  
  
Shadow got hit by something small and dense. And then another. He moved, half-asleep, and another hit him, just above his eyebrow.  
  
“Wha—“  
  
There was a woman sitting on the chair where he had folded his clothing on the night before, her bare feet propped up on the foot of his bed. She was eating something out of a bowl held on her lap, and what she was not eating, she was chucking at Shadow. She had the same golden-brown eyes as Khodī̂, and there was the paler skin of a scar around her tanned shin peeking from under the rolled up leg of her jeans.  
  
“You dream loud,” she declared.  
  
This wasn’t quite the weirdest thing Shadow had been told that week. “I’m sorry?” he tried, still half-asleep. It had been one of the best night’s sleep he had had in the past three years—the mattress had been firm but giving, the quilts thick, the half-opened window had let just the right amount of fresh air through the night… Even the woman’s strange wake-up call fit there. It felt safe, the same sensation as the night before in the kitchen. That was something Shadow hadn’t felt in several years.  
  
For some reason and despite the open window, the room also now smelled of horse.  
  
“You shouldn’t be sorry, you should be more careful,” she said.  
  
“With my dreams?” He sat up. Something rolled down in the folds of the quilt, an almond and a dried cranberry—what she had used to throw on him.  
  
She looked him up and down with the same kind of assessing stare Whetū had used the day before, barely lingering on the wound Khodī̂ had taped shut. “With pretty much everything but yeah, dreams for starters.” There was a faint drawl to her words that was not Whetū’s barely-there accent, nor Khodī̂’s. “Not letting strange women sneak up on you in the night too, but that can be lesson two.”  
  
She smiled and it was not quite… not quite. Shadow found himself smiling back, if a bit bemusedly. “Wouldn’t that last warning count for succubus?”  
  
“If succubi exist, they’re more than welcome to come ‘round. Killing people with sex? Hell yeah, what a way to go.” A clump of cereal crunched under her teeth.  
  
“I’m, er, I’m Shadow Moon.”  
  
“I know,” she said, “and you’re in my brother’s room.” She picked up another bite of granola. “The creepy old man downstairs wants you up and at them.”  
  
“Thanks for the wake up call.” He coughed a bit. He had gone to sleep only in his boxers, and well.  
  
This time, she grinned with all her teeth. “Don’t mind me, you can even go ahead and pretend I’m not there.” She winked. “Shiny.”  
  
He laughed.  
  
“Baby girl!” came the cry from the rest of the house. “Don’t let your horses wander on their own in the garden!”  
  
“Oops,” she said, sitting up, her feet going to the floor. In the blink of an eye, her expression changed, her presence changed. Shadow’s hands, quite under their own accord, gripped the quilt under them. “Careful with your dreams, Shadow. Careful with what you see.” She stood up, pushing the half-eaten bowl into his hands, smiled again in the not quite way. “I’m Ella, by the way. Hope you don’t die in that mess.”  
  
Then Ella was gone. There wasn’t a single cranberry left in the bowl.  
  
+  
  
Wednesday and Shadow had left quite fast after that, Wednesday apparently on a schedule Shadow was not privy to. Whetū had seen them off with his arms crossed, Ella followed by two horses who looked ready to bite Wednesday. There had been little more exchanged, aside from another refusal from Whetū.  
  
Shadow would have been happy to stay longer. Whetū shook his hand in silence. Shadow thanked him anyway.  
  
In the rearview mirror, the farmhouse looked a greyish-white.  
  
Wednesday sighed as they hit one larger road.  
  
“Did it went the way you expected?” Shadow asked.  
  
“More or less,” Wedesday said. “More or less. He’s quite wrong, you know, when he calls himself someone that’s not old and not new. He’s doing something very old, and very new. Django Whetū believes, and loves.” He moved in the seat, making himself comfortable. “Wake me up when we get to New York, don’t take the highway. I didn’t manage to get a single lick of sleep, I swear that house hates me.”  
  
  



End file.
